US Chief Justice Roberts suffered seizure

WASHINGTON, July 31 (Reuters) US Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts, 52, suffered a seizure before falling and being taken to hospital, a Court spokeswoman said.

''Chief Justice John Roberts, Jr. took a fall about 2 p.m.

today near his summer home in Maine after suffering what doctors describe as a benign idiopathic seizure,'' court spokeswoman Kathy Arberg said in a statement yesterday.

CNN said that an examination of Roberts, who suffered minor scrapes in his fall, had revealed there was no cause for concern and that he had recovered from the incident.

Arberg said earlier that Roberts had been taken to Penobscot Bay Medical Center in Rockport. A spokeswoman at the hospital declined to comment, citing patient confidentiality laws.

Roberts is the youngest of the nine Supreme Court members.

He has no known medical conditions.

The area around Port Clyde, midway up the coast of Maine, is known as a summer vacation spot. Roberts and his wife, Jane, purchased the home about a year ago.

The Supreme Court has been in its three-month summer recess since the end of last month.

Roberts, a conservative, was appointed to the Supreme Court by President George W. Bush. He took his seat on Sept. 29, 2005, succeeding William Rehnquist, who died of cancer.

Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito, Bush's other appointment to the court, helped push the court to the right in its just-ended term on issues such as abortion and race in schools.

Reuters SAM VP0650